Chandrayaan-2 spins history in lunar orbit

The spacecraft will hover around the moon’s orbit for the next few weeks, before it is slowly lowered onto the lunar surfaceETtech | August 21, 2019, 06:30 IST

India's spacecraft to the moon Chandrayaan-2 successfully entered the lunar orbit on Tuesday, clearing a crucial move for it to land on the moon's surface on September 7.

The spacecraft will hover around the moon’s orbit for the next few weeks, before it is slowly lowered onto the lunar surface. Chandrayaan-2 is an integrated spacecraft comprising an orbiter, a lander - Vikram named after the father of India’s space programme Vikram Sarabhai and Pragyan, a rover that will roll out out once the lander touches ground.

India’s first moon mission Chandrayaan-1 suffered damage to a few instruments after it faced issues with the heat shield of the spacecraft on entry into the lunar orbit. Space scientists had attributed to the lack of adequate information on the heat generated due to friction when entering the moon’s orbit, a crucial data the US declined to offer. This time around, Isro officials had enough data from its first mission to make the lunar entry smooth.

“We did what all humanly was possible, but at the same time since it is new mission and it is a terrifying moment for us,” said K Sivan, Chairman of Isro.

A series of orbit manoeuvres will be performed on Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the moon's surface, Indian Space Research Organisation said.

“The landing day is fixed and the location of the Moon is fixed, but our launching day delayed

to achieve the same landing day, we worked on the time based on that,” Isro chairman K Sivan said. “After landing images will be made available by the Rover”.

Soft landing success rate is only about 37% but we have confidence about our landing systems because we have enough tests, enough simulations at all levels, he said.